Showtimes & Tickets Enter Zip Code:

WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE: A REQUIEM IN FOUR ACTS
Directed by: Spike Lee.
Produced by: Sam Pollard & Lee.
Director of Photography: Cliff Charles.
Edited by: Geeta Gandbhir & Nancy Novack. Act V edited by Barry Alexander Brown.
Music by: Terence Blanchard.
Released by: HBO.
Country of Origin: USA. 256 min. Rated: TV-14.
DVD Features: Three-disc set. Commentary by filmmaker Spike Lee. Next Movement – Act V, 105-min. epilogue featuring new interviews and insights in the aftermath of Katrina. “Water is Rising” photo gallery by David Lee with music by Terence Blanchard. English/Spanish audio. Optional Spanish/French subtitles.

Spike Lee zeroes in on the cold, hard reality of the excruciatingly slow federal response to the disastrous aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and of governmental denial and unacknowledged responsibility for the breaching of the now-infamous levees that wreaked so much havoc, flooding the Gulf Coast and devastating a major American city. Indeed, his documentary is the definitive work on one of recent history’s most shameful episodes, and of a piece with 1997’s 4 Little Girls, Lee’s chronicle of the 1963 Birmingham church bombing, a turning point in the civil rights movement.

Originally aired on the one-year anniversary of the storm, the doc is most resonant when examining, as if through a forensically razor-sharp laser beam, the details of events leading up to and immediately following Katrina. The information gathered from survivor and expert testimony is skillfully presented for crucial context and carries its own wallop.

The work’s intentions are plain in its initial minutes, including a scene from the Congressional hearings investigating the failed response to the disaster, with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin stating the first words heard in the piece: “We come to you with facts.” Indeed, the doc’s structure is akin to that of a gathering storm, with meteorologists warning at the time about the region’s vulnerability, anecdotes depicting how it was apparent that “the Big One” was coming, and historians Douglas Brinkley and John Barry stressing this event was not the aberration the government was determined to portray it as being.

Even the most controversial sequence demonstrates that what the media wrote off as a conspiracy theory regarding the levees being intentionally bombed by the government was rooted in history, what with that scenario having been played out during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and 1965’s Hurricane Betsy, to keep New Orleans’ higher-income areas from being deluged. Nevertheless, while the doc does point out the gentrification seemingly in the works for NOLA, and while it discusses more well-known incidents that occurred – including the media’s use of the term “refugee” as opposed to “survivor”; Bush’s now-notorious “Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job,” remark; and Kanye West’s anti-Bush comment – it doesn’t sustain the focused condemnation of its first two hours. Though there are illuminating photos of the disaster and comparisons to other flood protection systems, the rambling second half could’ve benefited from trimming (the section on NOLA cultural history completely digresses). Composer (and NOLA native) Terence Blanchard’s score, however, is electrifying, along with Lee’s stylized still photo montages and jump cuts.

DVD Extras: Lee’s commentary is the most notable feature, revealing he had Blanchard use much of the latter’s musical theme from the Lee-directed heist caper Inside Man – genuinely fascinating, considering the consequences of institutional prejudice at that movie’s center, and the subliminally evocative effect the choice may have on viewers of both films.

Among Lee’s other disclosures are that he tried to land Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff for interviews. He pleads to the woman who reportedly confronted Rice about the inappropriateness of her New York City shopping spree in the midst of the Katrina disaster to step forward. In fact, much of Lee’s comments on Rice and other aspects of the ultimately absurd entanglements of race and class that underlay the government’s response to the hurricane are remarkably witty. At one point, he even admits he was surprised by the amount of funny moments he captured, which should come as no surprise to fans of the director, since he has always infused his work with a comedic sensibility. Lee also speculates that he’d like to follow the lives of the survivors he interviewed, much like in Michael Apted’s “Up” series.

While some of the new Act V adds perspective to the first four hours, it mostly feels like a compilation of deleted scenes, and the photo gallery is also a retread of the initial work’s harrowing images, set to Blanchard’s music. Reymond Levy
December 31, 2006